What is Digg?43 Comments
- linc65, on 10/11/2007, -5/+271) UNNECESSARILY RETAINING PERSONAL DATA IS EVIL.
2)The “new” (2007) Google policy is fraudulent. A careful reading of
http://216.239.57.110/blog_resources/google_log_retention_policy_faq.pdf
shows that when the data base becomes available it will be easy to link searches to IP addresses and to people. Don't forget the AOL case. If your searches are grouped or in a small batch then a computer program can probably identify you (even without an IP address)--and someone who knows a bit about you can almost certainly pick out your searches.
3) Read the above and the preceding two articles.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/taking-steps-to-further-improve-our.html
http://216.239.57.110/blog_resources/google_log_retention_policy_faq.pdf
They all have the look and feel of phony-baloney. The above says Google will retain data because governments are planning to require it. The people who wrote this, trying to rationalize the founders' philosophy, must have gagged as they typed. In fact the articles are actually begging governments to “force” Google to retain the data.
Somewhere it is stated that Google's founders hope that universities can use the retained data for research. However, this data is being obtained without consent of the people involved [Apparently most people are not aware that their searches are retained and can be identified with them personally.] I would hope that most universities have ethics policies that would forbid the use of such secretly collected data. I also have hope that someday our government will forbid the use of such data.
Google has done many admirable things for the world of information. However, the compulsion to retain searches is the invisible worm that may eventually turn the world against them. - tekz0r, on 10/11/2007, -3/+21Which is why I search for random subjects like Beastiality, penguines, and sim cards.
and glass table tops, and what pen ink is made out of.
they'll never get on to me. - cwgannon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18@smackjack (#6651391)
But they're sure as hell the only one with enough info to scare people *****. - smackjack, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17Relax, people. It's not like Google is the only company that does this.
- CharlesFrench, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12At least they're doing it openly.
- Salgat, on 10/11/2007, -5/+16I would love to see this anonymized search data become public domain in 10-20 years. If you think about it, this is the kind of thing historians crave for decades from now.
- tempusrob, on 10/11/2007, -4/+12"I would love to see this anonymized search data become public domain in 10-20 years."
Did you not see what happened with that AOL search leak? Those results were supposed to be "anonymized," too, but many searches were able to be correlated in such a way that identified people.
If you want popular search terms, Google does a yearly/monthly/weekly Zeitgeist: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html - CanoeBuilder, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Tempus:
If by "anonymized" you mean that Bill's searches were simply given a consistent numerical sequence, same with Mary, Jill, and Hank. Then, yeah.
The brouhaha was a result of the data not being anonymized in the classical sense, in addition to the non-omission of personally identifiable search terms.
I'm with salgat, this would be a great resource for historians. - tom6a, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6That's the why. Here's the what:
http://www.omninerd.com/2006/01/25/news/489?highlight=c4171#c4171 - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7After 18 - 24 months I'm sure they've had enough time and other data accumulate to make use of it.
- Protonz, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6I am not concerned with Google openly storing my search history (or browsing history via Google Toolbar).
I am concerned about why the government wants them to retain it. I am openly anti-big-government, is this enough for them to request my search history to try and start building a case against me? - siggducks, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7This is a moot point it seems. Who is the "bad guy" here that Google is supposedly keeping your data from? It can't be the US government, everyone's favorite boogeyman in the age of diminishing privacy, because we already know that the internet backbones (remember the AT&T suit and the retroactive immunity they were recently granted) are highly monitored and thus it is likely the NSA already has full records of who is searching for their designated watchlisted keywords and names. This whole thing seems more about the illusion of privacy rather than about privacy itself. Remember, on the internet, only idiots think they are truly anonymous.
- inadvertence, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Yes! The IP address is irrelevent. People don't seem to get this. The only thing that matters is whether your searches are still grouped together after they are "anonymized". A reporter from the New York Times was able to identify a woman just by looking at searches (grouped by ID, not by the actual IP address) when AOL made their search logs public:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?ex=1312776000&en=f6f61949c6da4d38&ei=5090
That's why I think it is dishonest on the part of Google to claim that they "anonymize" the search results. Reading their FAQ, they only map the IP address to unique IDs. Your searches are still grouped together. - lnxaddct, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Every company you ever deal with collects info on you. If you've ever bought something and didn't pay with cash, you're more screwed. Google is very open and has yet to cross a line with users. When the government subpoenaed search logs from every major search engine Google was literally the only one to fight it, and they won. Everyone else just handed over the data, no questions asked. Google knows that it needs user's trust to thrive, without it they've got nothing.
Disclaimer: I'm a little biased as I'm an engineer at Google. These are just my opinions and nothing official, but really we do everything we can to put the user first before *anything* else. - dissident, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2use the scroogle scraper to get by this
http://www.scroogle.org - airstrike, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2what we really should do is have -everyone- search for all the keywords they consider to be worthy of monitoring. this way they won't know who's searching it because they're really into stuff like that and who's searching just for the heck of it. it'll definetely make it harder for them to pick one subject to analyze with so many different people to choose from.
- paradexes, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Or you can use ixquick.com They are a pretty decent search engine. They only keep server logs for 2 days. IMO that is more reasonable than a google's policy. Google does not HAVE to do it this way. They just choose to.
- drjekelmrhyde, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Pretty soon the GOV wont need warrants they can just Google your ass
- maninalift, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1For the most part I agree with lnxaddct but the above comment does highlight a problem. The judges and juries out there often don't understand the technical issues and people can get convicted on the basis of spurious information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ore - keyboardashtray, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2When the AOL story broke (the one inadvertance linked to) that's when I knew my Google days were over. Google did the right thing when refusing to turn over their records of searches to the government, but some of their other policies make me question their goal "don't be evil".
The AOL search data released almost instantly became available for anyone to text search through. Anyone who had ever done a vanity search (Googling your own name) could almost instantly be identified along with their less noble searches. The lady in the story had searched for a variety of diseases, anyone who perused her search history would think she was ripe with disease. Of course I could think of some worse searches to be linked to, especially out of context.
18-24 months? Way too little, too late - Google should've gotten on the right track the second that AOL story broke.
If history has taught us anything, its that some of Googles data will eventually leak out. It's not a matter of if but when. In the meantime, I've been using Ixquick for searches http://ixquick.com/ They delete the data every 48 hours. - keksovkeks, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1About use proxy and anonymous surfing http://vprivatenetwork.com/index.php?action=config ...
- Trevino, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Those of you who are getting excited about this have nothing to get excited about. If you really cared about your privacy and anonymity online, you would use some kind of proxy.
- boogiebunker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0People talking about saving searches for history are, among other things, missing the point. First, these are not university studies, or even government records, (which in pre-Florida USA might be available). These are highly valuable, prized and jealously protected corporate property, as is the methodology and mindset of the corps that collect it. The Internet was created by secret government, designed as a communication network that could survive nuclear attack while passing secure messages with authentication of sender/receiver intact.
Fast forward to the heady days of today where all info is available on "the web" which is just one possible interface of the Internet. The authentication designed for nuclear war is now a boon to the intelligence community in a very different USA, and is now a financial windfall for corporations that must, by law, do everything they can to make money. If they don't they can be sued by their stockholders.
So let's not mix erudite, ivory tower, studies with corporate greed and governmental surveillance. The point is, the way we're going, the records you get will have been tailored by others to be politically possible, and tailored to suit your viewing habits. - RobertBogley, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1lnxaddct
1. Just because other companies collect information on you doesn't mean its right and it doesn't justify google doing it. If you want to collect information on people, do it, but drop the "do no evil" line, and make it clear on every point where you collect the data. If you want users trust, stop storing information on us, or restrict it to ad clicks and use one way encryption so the clicks cant be traced back to the source ip.
2. Google has crossed the line with users. Its an ugly, dangerous, uncontrollable machine that can have a devastating effect on businesses. There's enough blogs going around for you to realise I'm not the only one thinking this.
3. US law is an even bigger ass than UK law, and seemingly has more apparent cases of injustice, So the fact that google won the case can be considered lucky. If you didnt track the information in the first place, it wouldn't have been an issue - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1trackmenot ftw
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/ - klinking123, on 01/27/2009, -0/+0replays http://fighterreplays.com
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darkfall forums http://mmoriot.com/darkfall
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aion forums http://mmoriot.com/aion
tera http://mmoriot.com/tera - maninalift, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0---
- RobertBogley, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3Goodbye google. Today I am changing my browser home page and removing all google products.
1. Because they are collecting information about me (and you). I could end up getting shipped across to the USA for trial just because someone spoofed my IP address or hijacked my pc and searched for child porn !!! No thanks
2. My local google desktop search installation today screwed my laptop on reboot, turned out to be an upgrade I didn't ask for, and it installed google toolbar without asking me. Now that got my blood really boiling.
3. Google is judge and jury when it come to dropping businesses from search results. No consideration. You are dropped by a robot.
4. Google "wants to" become police, judge and jury
Whether my business can survive without google advertising is another thing.. blood boiling even more.
Evil - zippy757, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1... I heard that Google will tie this to the National ID Card...... so that when you're stopped and made to present your 'papers,' when speeding in your car, they can also arrest you for looking at porn.....
- InetRoadkill, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1[quote]It’s also worth reiterating that we do not ask our users for their names, address, or phone numbers to use most of our services." [/quote]
If you have the user's IP address and the timestamp of the search, you don't need names and addresses to identify the user. The IP address alone is sufficient. - nazsco, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Google states they will track you and store your search records for two years.
only i read it that way? - kvncortez, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1No mention in the article of if this pertains to all of google services. Just mention of semi-anonymizing (sp is it even a word? ha) user search data. My question to you guys is are they making any efforts to protect the anonymity of there other services for example google mail, or google calendars or is that pass the limits of what they can do to protect the user's privacy?
- dissident, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1I would love to see this search info become public domain say 5 years after the fact... it would show the aspects of human nature that people like to pretend don't exist but are actually quite common.. I think you'd be shocked by what you'd find people searching.
http://www.scroogle.org - meb3v, on 10/11/2007, -8/+6Yet another blow to privacy.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -13/+1Here's the how:
- mrspankeh, on 10/11/2007, -20/+4Proabably as good a time as ever to try out a alternative search engine...
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alt_search_engines_april07.php - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -19/+1Lemme guess... AOL is next?
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